Florida was the future. The weather’s balmy in winter, the beaches are divine and there’s no personal income tax. All that and a lower cost of living had set off a sizable migration of companies from New York, Chicago and California. Between 2021 and 2023, Florida was the fastest-growing state.
Now as a second monster hurricane in two weeks smashes the western coast, many Floridians have been turned into serial refugees. Florida is no stranger to the occasional big “blow,” but climate change may have completely rewritten the meteorological future, and it’s not sunny.
We can’t say no one expected this. Nor is the western coast the only area under threat. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration projects that by 2100, more than 30% of Southeast Florida could be underwater, including much of Miami and Fort Lauderdale. Other more extreme scenarios put that figure closer to 70%.
Yet the extent of the threat has been kept under wraps by politicians unwilling to do the hard work.